Cogs can think.

I’m feeling worried. This is the first time I’m truly feeling worried ever since my mother got sick. I nearly forgot how it felt.

Twiek has been outside, away, for nearly seven hours now. That’s not unusual for a cat. It is, however, unusual for Twiek. This cat is now nearly two, and he’s never been outside for much longer than ten minutes. He hates going outside, he’s terribly afraid of all the ‘outside stuff’. Sometimes he does run outside, but he barely ever leaves the recessed entry of my front door. He usually gets scared shitless because, I don’t know, a leaf fell down. And then I’m stuck with a scared cat with a puffed tail. Which looks totally cute, by the way.

And now he’s been away for SEVEN HOURS. And it’s been pitch-dark for three hours now.

I’m worried something happened to him. I know my cat well, and this isn’t like him at all. He’s a very pretty cat, and someone might easily mistake him for a thoroughbred - and theft of thoroughbred cats is quite common in The Netherlands, since thoroughbreds are worth an awful lot of money.

I don’t think I’ll be doing much sleep tonight if he doesn’t show up soon.

Update: I can go safe to sleep. I opened my backyard door for the 127241th time, and this time, he came walking in. Pretty as ever. I wonder where he spent those 8+ hours?

Well have I ever.

My new proposal for my bachelor’s thesis has found a home. I’m so happy right now, even Twiek was all confused. “Ey, I’m the one supposed to be jumping around aimlessly, running up walls, and climbing the couches, jumping onto tables and knocking over cups of coffee. You are upsetting the delicate balance of power here.” Sorry sweetie, normal service will resume in a minute. Or two.

Anyway, I’ll be diving into the attitudes people have towards minority languages. I’m going to compare the attitudes people from England (as in, England-proper) have towards Scottish Gaelic and Welsh to the attitudes people from The Netherlands have towards our very own minority language, Frisian.

The reason I want to dive into this is because in the past few decades or so, there has been a worldwide surge in interest in these minority languages, as people (rightfully so) realise that without the proper measures, these languages, and all the cultural information they have inside them, will vanish. Various governments have started promotional programs and the likes to promote the use of these languages. In The Netherlands, the use of Frisian has been promoted heavily since 1956, resulting in Frisian being a compulsory subject in schools, various cities and municipalties officially changing their names to the Frisian variants, and even the province of Friesland itself officially changing its name to Fryslân, the Frisian variant. The Scottish government has done similar promotion of Scottish Gaelic.

Now, if it turns out that the attitudes towards minority languages of people speaking the majority language are similar cross-culturally, then language unions can share methods of promotion on a cross-cultural level.

That’s the idea, in any case. It’s going to be a hell of a lot of work.

This is exactly why I like felines so much. They are gracious, agile, beautiful, inventive, stealthy, and just downright awesome on every level.

Humans the pinnacle of evolution? Don’t make me laugh.

Somehow, it seems as if he’s on fire.

Anyway, this really seems like his ‘on guard’ spot, since he never sleeps here - he just overseas his territory. As soon as he hears even the faintest of noises, he gets up, and sprints to wherever it came from.

Comical to watch.

Is there anything more pleasing than watching a 20 month old tomcat chasing its own tail in the kitchen, lit by deep-blue LED lighting, with Alanis’ “Surrendering” playing in the background?

Well, apart from meeting Fiona Apple, I’m pretty sure the answer is ‘no’.

A photo a I took of Twiek a few days ago. He’s such a pretty critter, this is thoroughbred material. Dare to disagree with me.

Cats do drugs too.

Somehow that doesn’t surprise me.

Got some cool new gear.

A brand new TV, LCD, 83cm, HD, superawesome, scaringly large. Review on OSNews soon.

A Nikon D70 digital SLR camera. It’s actually not mine; I get to loan it from Adam and his wife Beth (thanks!) while I’m at OSNews. I took my first few pictures with it just now, without having dived into the manuals or other photography jargon yet. They already look a whole lot slicker than any previous photos I made.

More to come.

This morning I woke up at around 6 because of the pain in my chest. Unable to get back to sleep, I decided to make me a cup of tea and go do some browsing on my MacBook. As I sat up straight, I look at my cat Twiek and say:

“Go make me some tea, Cat.”

He lifts his head, blinks at me once or twice, and just stares at me.

I sigh. “I forgot I was the bitch in this relationship.”

I would just like to congratulate Heather and Jon with their daughter Leta. I’ve never met any of them, and they probably haven’t a clue who the hell I am (I sent a few mails their way, but they probably get a whole lot more than just mine), but I still want to congratulate them in public. No, it’s not the little girl’s birthday, it’s not her first day of school, and no, it’s not her first ever Linux installation.

As it turns out, their daughter hates insects, and probably spiders too. That is a good thing. Insects and spiders are the seed of the devil, they are evil, wrong, scary, and must be eradicated from the face of the earth. They. Must. Die.

I am terribly afraid of insects, and I have a fairly moderate case of arachnophobia. As in, if they get larger than, I don’t know, a centimetre, I’ll be screaming like a schoolgirl.

My house actually has a small shed located way off my property (in a whole block of sheds), but I haven’t been there in, well, I don’t know, 10 months or so. It’s a spider-infested hell hole, and as a civilised human being, I simply refuse to bless that hell hole with my glowing appearance. Let the spiders have their victory over there.

When I see a spider, it consequently means it will have to die. This poses me with a serious problem, as the mere sight of one puts me in a serious instinctive flight or fight response. Twiek can care of large spiders easily, but he has this nasty habit of playing with them; I still haven’t been able to train Twiek to be a mindless spider killing drone.

But we’ll get there.